Melissa Sue Anderson, star of ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ speaks of her decision to leave Hollywood for Canada

How often have you thought about an old show you loved and wondered what the actors are up to now? For many fans of “Little House on the Prairie,” the adventures of the family living on the farm in Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, were a cherished part of their lives. Naturally, these fans would be curious about the actors’ lives today.

One beloved character was Mary Ingalls, played by the beautiful Melissa Sue Anderson. Many fans expected her to remain a fixture on their screens, but she had different plans. Anderson chose to leave Hollywood behind and move to Canada.

Anderson began her acting career with guest roles and rose to fame as one of the central figures of “Little House on the Prairie.” Her performance earned her several nominations for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series, which her fans believed she richly deserved.

Reflecting on her experience with the show, Anderson told Pop Entertainment in 2010, “I’m lucky that there even was a character to play, because in the book, there isn’t much of one. Laura [Ingalls, author of the Little House novels] was a quite older woman when she wrote the books. She was remembering the best of her life. The characters of Ma and Mary didn’t factor in a lot. There was a lot of Laura and Pa and Laura and Jack the dog and Laura and Mr. Edwards, but there wasn’t a lot of Mary. I’m fortunate that they discovered that I could act.”

After her role as Mary Ingalls, Anderson tried other minor roles. In 1990, she married television producer Michael Sloan, and in 2002, they moved to Montreal with their two children, Piper and Griffin. In 2007, the family became Canadian citizens. With this new life came new commitments, and Anderson decided to step away from showbiz to spend more time with her children and avoid pressuring them into acting careers.

In an interview with E-Talk, Anderson said, “I really stepped away for a long time. That was really for the kids so they would have their own sense of who they were as opposed to being with me.”

Although she took a significant break from acting, Anderson did take on small roles in recent years. Her transformative experience on “Little House on the Prairie” inspired her to write a memoir titled The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House.